Limits to Growth: Dennis Meadows (#116 Encore)

Our computer-generated scenarios all showed this growth stopping in the early decades of the 21st century, and, I must say, looking back now, it seems that we’re right on schedule.”

Dennis Meadows led the team at MIT whose computer simulations led to the publication of the top-selling environmental book of all time – The Limits to Growth. Scientists built on Jay Forester’s pioneering system dynamics work to chart future trends of five variables, analyzing how they would influence one another. The variables were world population, industrialization, pollution, food production and resource depletion. Their World3 computer model’s business-as-usual scenario did not paint a rosy picture, and many economists and industrialists criticized the study harshly.

Our work challenged the foundations of modern economic theory. It made life for politicians very uncomfortable, and threatened corporations who were looking to increase their markets. So, all of them, especially the economists, really lit out after our work, and criticized it roundly….”

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In recent years, several studies have confirmed that the “standard-run” scenario turned out to be remarkably accurate. This may offer an explanation of the growing list of environmental crises and the inability of the global economy to maintain the robust growth rates experienced earlier:

This interview with Dennis Meadows was recorded in 2009. It’s followed by a brief conversation with another team member, Jørgen Randers, offering observations on the 40th anniversary of the landmark report, in 2012.

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More Info:

The Limits to Growth was authored by Donella Meadows, Dennis Meadows, Jørgen Randers, and William Behrens III. The study was commissioned by the Club of Rome and underwritten by the Volkswagen Foundation. The book can still be purchased, as can several updates. The original is also available online courtesy of the Donella Meadows Institute. The Club of Rome offers several reports, books and other information following up on the original study.

4 Comments

while anyone with the ability to engage in rational thought must agree wholeheartedly with Mr Meadows,, we must face the unpleasant truth that the unthinking majority do not possess this lifeskill, from the POTUS downwards.

He offers an infinity of everything, a cornucopia of eternal plenty, and just like all the suckers buying into a Ponzi scheme, they vote for it—indulging in the strangest thought process of all, that prosperity is not an abstract concept, but a political entity that can be voted into office.

So as privation begins to bite in earnest in the next few years, the initial reaction will be denial, then blame, then violence against those seen as responsible.
Already the POTUS begun to do this:—“get rid of those who take your jobs, and all will be well”

That will not work of course, because the problem lies elsewhere: that we have burned all the cheap oil and we are trying to sustain our existence using expensive oil.
It won’t work.

And when it becomes obvious that it can’t work, civil disorder is certain, then the introduction of martial law and suspension of the constitution (temporarily of course)

In no time at all the deniers (and the rest of us)will find a dictator in charge, still insisting that the nation is awash with oil coal and gas

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